Rumour has it that Intel's processors are holding back Microsoft

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The latest rumour regarding Microsoft's new Surface devices claims that production has been affected by problems relating to the supply of processors, and that could be bad news for those in the UK keenly awaiting the arrival of the Surface Book.

According to sources in the Far East supply chain who spoke to DigiTimes, a shortage of Intel's Skylake CPUs is going to mean weaker shipment numbers for both the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book in the final quarter of this year – with some orders being postponed to Q1 of next year.

In that first quarter, though, shipments should be healthy with a predicted 100,000 units of the Surface Book per month, and double that for the Surface Pro 4.

Bear in mind all this is speculation, of course, but if there are hiccups when it comes to supply, it could mean the Surface Book, the device Microsoft has been struggling more with in terms of stock level, could potentially see its arrival in the UK delayed even further.

The Surface Book has been out in the US for a little while now, and came out last month in Australia too, but as for the UK we still can't buy the nifty convertible laptop.

The last we heard, the device is due to arrive in the UK in the spring of 2016, probably in March or April. Hopefully that will still be the case as the worst case scenario, otherwise we'll be thinking about the Surface Book 2 before the original model is even on sale in this country…